In Phenomenology of Perception (1945), French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 – 1961) establishes a distinction between concrete and abstract movements, based on the clinical case study of Schneider. Merleau-Ponty investigates why Schneider was no longer able to perform abstract movement, but was still capable of concrete actions. The philosopher defines concrete the movements that are related to functional actions and serve immediate needs; these are familiar and habitual movements. On the contrary, abstract movements evocate situations and occurs when the body is put in an imaginary situation, which requires an ability of projection. When asked to performer abstract movements, Schneider cannot touch and move his body because he was no longer able to project both the body and the situation. For Schneider, the body is available only “as an amorphous mass” (Merleau-Ponty 1945, 112). For a subject not affected by the illness, the body would be immediately ready to be moved; it would be perceived in its context without the need of collocating it.In this presentation, I intend to explore how the description of abstract and concrete movements, as proposed by MerleauPonty, can be used to analyse the dance piece Satisfying Lover (1967), choreographed by contact improviser and choreographer Steve Paxton. Satisfying Lover presents the dancers, common people from the street, walking purposeful on stage. Paxton himself questions and pushes the boundaries of movement. I am questioning what transforms a movement into a “dance movement”. Is the intention of movementthat transforms it from concrete to abstract? Or perhaps is it the background, the space, or environment, in which the movement is performed?

﻿​Embodied rhythm conversations: Experiencing the relationship between tap dance and music

​Hebert, C. (University of Ottawa)​ What is it like to experience musical rhythm through tap dance? How may rhythm tap dance facilitate an embodied musical understanding (Juntunen & Hyvonen, 2004)? Conversely, how may a musical understanding affect a tap dancer’s practice? This presentation examines the embodied musical experiences of rhythm tap dancers through a phenomenological descriptionof my personal and professional practice as a tap dancer. According to Sondra Horton Fraleigh (1987), the ""movement of dance must fulfill an aesthetic purpose"" (19). Though she does not explicitly specify, Fraleigh's evident focus on the primary role of visual aesthetics in dance (1987) excludes any consideration for the auditory aesthetics affecting and produced by rhythm dance practices, such as Spanish flamenco, Englishclogging, and African gumboot dancing. American tap dancing, the product of intercultural fusions between Irish and African Americans beginning in the 1600s in the Caribbean and later moving to the southern and northern United States (Valis Hill, 2010), performs a relationship between visual and aural aesthetics. The tap dancer may be primarily concerned with one or the other, but through the dance, both manifest. A third distinguishing emphasis, improvisation, reaffirms the link between musicalforms such as jazz, and tap dancing. With this presentation, I will delve deeper into the connections between tap dancing and music to explore how the tap dancer affects/is affected by the musical conversation of the dance. I ask: what does it mean to simultaneously embody and produce rhythm in tap dancing? Employing Emile Jaques-Dalcroze's theory of embodied musical knowing, Dalcroze Eurhythmics (1920;1985), this presentation explores the experiences of one tap dancer as she embodies and produces the aural and visual aesthetics of rhythm.

Form, Feeling, and Flow(s) of E-motion: Exploring the Experiences of Joy during Zumba Exercise

Glynn, B.A. ​(University of Ottawa)

​What would it be like to sense the moment-to-moment experiences of joy while exercising? A hermeneutic phenomenological methodology was employed to explore this question through various bodily forms, feelings, and flows in the context of Zumba. Data gleaned from the experiences of seven long-term Zumba participants and the principal researcher via phenomenological interviews, observations, journaling, and a focus group meeting at the conclusion of the five-month study form the basis of this inquiry. A phenomenological analysis resulted in exploring the affective qualities of joy through bouncing and swaying forms and feelings of e-motion, as well as the existential connection of body-other-world during somatic flow. This inquiry aims to bring attention to joy as more than an emotional state, rather it is a motile phenomenon that may be experienced as massive moments, where one feels prolonged connections to the music and rhythmical connections, and even micro moments of joy such as the shared smile between participants that quickly peaks and fades. Thus this paper aims to turn towards the ‘taken-for-granted’ experiences of joy that unfolds during Zumba, while offering opportunities to sense the ways physical activities and ordinary motions in our everyday lives may become extraordinary.

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